In our new weekly Mindful Dreams column, Aneta Baranek of the School of Metaphysics is offering free dream interpretations to The Mindful Word readers, as well as articles on dreams in general.

If you’ve ever been curious about deciphering the cryptic contents of your subconscious mind, here’s your chance! If you would like Aneta to interpret your dream, fill out this form. She will respond with your dream interpretation through this column, published every Thursday. Aneta would love to receive more comments for the dreams interpreted. If you can relate to a dream posted here or have any insights to add, you can post them as comments to the interpretation, or email her at aneta@themindfulword.org.

DREAM

Hi Aneta,

I have had three dreams in the last four days all with the feeling of impending doom/death. First, I was standing at the end of a train in a station and another train came flying in and almost hit me, but I dove under the train just in time. Then, for whatever reason, the train started to lower down onto the tracks and was about to crush me under it. I quickly rolled out from under it and then it started to tip over to the side on top of me and for a third time I scrambled out of the way just in time to not be crushed and then I woke up.

The next night, I dreamed that I had decided to take a small canoe home from Denmark to the U.S. I had just finished studying abroad there and was headed home, but my canoe kept filling with water and sinking and I would hop in the water and lift it up only to have it start sinking again a few minutes later. I remember sitting there after the third or fourth time I had lifted the canoe and having this overwhelming feeling of doom as if in that moment I had realized how crazy an idea it was to take a canoe home to the U.S. from Denmark. I thought I was going to die and then somehow a few minutes later got to land and woke up. This dream was EXTREMELY realistic to the point where I had to sit back and make sure that I did not actually attempt to take a canoe home when I came back from abroad a few weeks ago.

Thirdly, I had a dream that I was kidnapped and was trapped in a house with a few other people. I threw a large rock through a window and ran for my life. I got away initially, but then was being followed by my kidnappers. It was like a scene from a movie where I was running through crowds of people as these men chased me until I ran into a room with a massive yoga class going on. It was dark in the room and full of a lot of people. I grabbed a yoga mat and quickly joined in hoping that my kidnappers would not notice me as I was blending in with the rest of the crowd. It worked for a short time, but they eventually caught me again and I escaped again. After about three times being kidnapped and escaping, I got this same feeling of impending doom/death and hopelessness. Then I woke up.

DREAMER: Female, U.S., 21

MAIN SYMBOLS:

Train – an organization that the dreamer is a part of

Canoe – physical body of the dreamer

Water – conscious life experience

Kidnapper – an aspect of the dreamer that he/she feels attacked by

INTERPRETATION

Dear Chloe,

Thank you for sharing your dreams. All three dreams are similar in the theme of you as the dreamer feeling overwhelmed in your waking life. The first dream with the train talks about you feeling overtaken by an organization (that is what a train represents in a dream). An organization might be your workplace, a club you belong to or a spiritual place you go to.

In the second dream you felt overall a sense of being taken over by your regular life experience (water). The canoe you wanted to bring from Denmark symbolizes your physical body which was sinking.

Lastly, the third dream speaks to you feeling attacked, chased by some undefined aspects of you. The kidnappers, although foreign, still represent parts of you. They represent parts of you that you feel attacked by, afraid of.

I can see how all these three dreams could awaken a lot of doom and gloom in your consciousness.

APPLICATION

What is most important for you to realize is that your dreams reflect your attitudes from your waking life experience, not the other way around. That is wonderful news because it signifies that you have the power to adjust your perceptions during your waking life which then are reflected in your dreams. All three dreams do show that you have a lot of fears moving through you at this time. Those fears span multiple areas of your life: an organization you’re a part of, your regular daily life experiences and then inner parts of you that the kidnappers symbolize.

What’s needed is to decipher what exactly these fears relate to. I would suggest you get a dream journal. Every morning upon awakening write down all the dreams from the previous night. Examine the attitudes in the dream. The attitudes in the dream will be a direct reflection of your attitudes during your waking life. Whatever the attitude in the dream, ask yourself how it ties in with your experiences from the day or two prior to having the dream.

With the three dreams that you shared it would be good for you to ask yourself “What am I truly afraid of?” This way you will be able to pinpoint the exact source of your fears. Once we bring awareness to our fears we are able to face them rather than allow them to control us. Many fears are imagined and not as powerful as we make them out to be.

In addition to working with your dreams I would also suggest for you to do some form of concentration exercise every day. For example, for 10 or 15 minutes every day you could put your whole attention on your breath. Observe it and fully focus on filling your body with the incoming breath and then expelling the outgoing breath. With patience and practice you will develop a wonderful mechanism to slow down your mind and to calm yourself down which in turn will aid you in dispelling your fears.

While pursuing her Doctor of Divinity degree, Aneta continues her research and study of dreams. She also holds a Master’s degree from DePaul University in Computer Science. She has been serving as a spiritual teacher through the School of Metaphysics for the last six years. She currently resides in Kansas City, Missouri, where she directs one of the branches of the School of Metaphysics. Learn more about Aneta at onwholeness.com and the School of Metaphysics at som.org.

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